Stonehenge & Salisbury

I guess we all love a mystery and Stonehenge (pics) is a 5,000 year old mystery. This circular assembly of massive stones, some of which came from 250 miles away, stands on the Salisbury Plain in southwest England.

Certainly, there’s no need for me to drone on about Stonehenge, it’s well documented. It’s easy enough to hire a tour to take you to Stonehenge from London to the east or from Bath or Bristol to the west. We chose to stop off for a couple of days in Salisbury which allowed us to visit Stonehenge as well as Old Sarum and the lovely town of Salisbury itself.

Old Sarum is in fact the birthplace for the town of Salisbury. It began as a fortification when the Romans populated England in the 1st century AD. William The Conqueror built a castle here in the 11th century and in the early 13th century the church decided to build a new cathedral away from Old Sarum and chose to locate it about 2 kilometers away near the River Avon. Today you can stroll among the original foundations of the castle and cathedral.

The town of Salisbury is notable for its half-timbered Tudor houses and Georgian mansions but mostly for the Salisbury Cathedral, the original structure in Salisbury constructed between 1220 and 1258. The cathedral boasts a 123 meter spire, the tallest in England and is home to one of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta. This succinct document, signed in 1215 established the essential principles of human rights and freedom from tyranny. Even though it was largely ignored in the years following, the ideals endured and formed the basis for English law and those same ideals can be found in our own Declaration of Independence.